Musings

General-purpose musings

There are 780 posts filed in Musings (this is page 27 of 78).

Villa Real at Seaboard Station

Villa Real in Feb. 2009, courtesy of Steve Rhoade

A few weeks ago, the family and I stopped in to our favorite Chinese restaurant, Peace Street China, for some take-out dinner. As our order was being prepared, Travis and I wandered over to look at the trains in the CSX rail yard.

As we wandered up to the edge of the yard I saw that the owners of the private rail cars were there, working to restore them. It was the first time since I saw the cars appear almost a decade ago that I’d seen anyone working on them. According to a few web searches, the Villa Real is owned by Herman Page and Al Sauer, though I don’t remember now which owner I met. The baggage car next to the Villa Real was also being worked on and I met the owner of that one, too.
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The value of editors

Big Boss boo boo

I love editing so much that I married an editor. I like to think that I had some natural talent at editing before I met Kelly but I definitely gained a whole new appreciation for the art of editing after watching what Kelly does. I knew that an editor was responsible for making sure all the i’s were dotted and the t’s crossed, but what I didn’t know before I met Kelly was how much an editor’s role is as much arbitrator than anything else. In the publishing world, anyway.

Blogging is a bit different when it comes to editing. That is, I don’t really do any editing. I love swiftly cranking out a post, following an idea as my fingers fly unfettered across the keyboard, not caring much about the mistakes that might pop up. The reason I can do this is that blogging is extraordinarily affordable. I invest my time in composing my posts but not much else. Should a correction need to be made, I can always do a quick search-and-replace to fix it. I can also post a new post as a correction. Some times I even rewrite my posts after they’re posted when I think I can improve on what I have to say. I guess you could say that I take full advantage of the no-rules frontier that is blogging. Blogging doesn’t have to be perfect because it’s fluid and cheap!
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Made in America?


Our daughter Hallie had a recent homework assignment where she was to find things around the home that were made in other countries. I laughed when I heard the assignment: it’s easy to find things made elsewhere – the real challenge is finding anything made in America anymore.

Hallie wanted some variety in her countries, so we quickly ruled out 70% of our household items by logging something made in China. Then it was a struggle. Our Toshiba TV is (presumably) made in Japan, as is our Nikon camera (again, presumably). Our Honda vehicles weren’t safe choices because they were likely made in American factories. We hit pay dirt when I suggested we check our clothing labels. It’s still true that clothes come from a variety of places: Phillipines, Jordan, Dominican Republic, and Vietnam, among others. Again, American clothes are few and far between.
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Capt. Honors and his videos

Capt. Owen Honors

When I first heard about the controversy over Capt. Owen Honors and the videos he made when he was Executive Officer of the carrier USS Enterprise (CVN-65), I immediately thought of the irreverent videos made by my captain and senior leaders right before our ship would pull into a foreign port. They usually had some costumes in it or a skit of some sort. Looking at the same horizon, the same haze-gray paint, or the same windowless compartments for months on end can make you crazy, so adding a little humor is a good thing. Especially if it conveys important information in a compelling way.
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Highlights of 2010: Self-improvement

Beard and specs

Ah, the annual “this is what happened’ list. It’s always a challenge summing up a year’s worth of events. I’ll start off with this entry on self-improvement.

This year was a year of self-improvement for me. In January I had the spot that had been growing on my temple taken off. I was amazed at how quick and painless it was. I was also surprised at just how happy it made me to not see it on my face anymore.
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Family wants to know how teen snuck onto plane

It’s truly a tragedy that Delvonte Tisdale fell from the wheel well of an airplane. That said, I don’t understand how the family can blame airport security when it was apparently this young man’s poor decision which resulted in his death.

CHARLOTTE, N.C. — Family and friends of a North Carolina teen who fell from the sky after stowing away in an airplane’s wheel well say they are haunted by the boy’s death and wondering why security didn’t stop him from climbing onto the aircraft.

via Family wants to know how teen snuck onto plane :: WRAL.com.

Hate groups

Like many in Raleigh, I learned that a particular hate group from Kansas would be protesting Saturday at the funeral of Elizabeth Edwards. I fell into the knee-jerk response of wanting to counter-protest until last night I had an epiphany. I was reminded of comedy genius Andy Kaufman’s pro-wrestling “career:” where Kaufman became the target of enraged wrestling fans when he duped them in a performance-art masterpiece.

The crowd did all the work. Kaufman just set them in motion.

A hate group like the one coming to town feeds off its opposition. If a hate group goads me into anger it’s because I let them. It’s a lesson I’ve been slow to learn, that no one can piss me off without my permission. If they make me angry, they win.

Rather than match their anger, I will peacefully wish them well. And I will choose another game to play.

Julian Assange and Wikileaks

I’m not much impressed with the leaked diplomatic cables provided by Wikileaks and its director, Julian Assange. I’ve not seen in the press anything that strikes me as being particularly deserving of classification. I suppose it’s because the source of the documents is the State Department, which apparently gathers all of its intelligence at embassy cocktail parties.

Boooorrring. Even the Hee Haw gossip girls could do that.
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Flipper TV show

Tonight the kids and I watched an Imax movie called Dolphins, which follows scientists studying dolphin behavior. It was quite an entertaining movie, but it was not as entertaining as my story to the kids of the dolphin show I used to watch as a kid called Flipper.

The kids got a kick out of my description of the show’s typical plot, where these two boys could magically communicate with Flipper. The dolphin would pop up from the water, make dolphin gibberish sounds, and convey the most sophisticated messages.
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